Microsoft Research and University of Cambridge Assign Chemistry Add-In for Word Project to Outercurve Foundation

Today we assigned our Chemistry Add-in for word (“Chem4Word”) to OuterCurve:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/microsoft-research-and-university-of-cambridge-assign-chemistry-add-in-for-word-project-to-outercurve-foundation-115019264.html

REDMOND, Wash. and WAKEFIELD, Mass., Feb. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — The Outercurve Foundation, in collaboration with Microsoft Research and University of Cambridge, today announced that the Chemistry Add-In for Word project has been added to the Foundation’s Research Accelerators Gallery, a collection of open source projects that benefit the research and science communities. The Chemistry Add-In for Word (also known as the Chem4Word project) was developed by Microsoft Research and Drs. Peter Murray-Rust and Joe Townsend of the University of Cambridge’s Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics. The two organizations assigned the project to the Outercurve Foundation today.

Let me explain what this means and then why we did it. I expect a wide range of reactions.

The ‘what’ is that the Code has been assigned to OuterCurve (http://www.outercurve.org/)

The name ‘Outercurve Foundation’ speaks to our ambition to be a foundation on the leading edge of the open source world, representing the interests of the growing audience of developers and corporations engaging with the traditional FOSS community.

Simply, the code is Open Source, under an Apache licence and so free for anyone to use, develop and distribute. This formally places it in the same licence area as code on the well-known Apache site (http://www.apache.org/ ) where many extremely valuable libraries and other tools are developed in a community and with communal governance. OuterCurve has similar aims, but no two organizations are alike and we expect that OC will create its own tradition. OC provides a place where those interested in developing Open Code can congregate and contribute. It’s likely, but not essential, that the code is based on .NET and/or C# with perhaps WPF and XAML.

C# was developed essentially by Microsoft and it’s probably that >90% of code written in it runs on a .NET platform. At present Chem4Word will only run usefully on a Microsoft operating system. There is an Open Source platform, Mono, that will run C# but not yet the WPF/XAML for the graphics.

One aspiration is that operating environments such as Mono will become increasingly popular and that the remaining deficiencies (graphics) will be developed in the Open Source community. This aspiration is shared by those associated with OuterCurve which will foster Open source approaches to solving the larger problems. At the other end of the spectrum will be the view that Microsoft’s closed platform will remain dominant and that these Open Source developments are irrelevant.

Certainly there is currently little F/OSS code developed in C# in our area. Given that it’s the most popular language in the world this is an opportunity for practitioners to take part in a community project and we hope to see such a community develop.

Am I idealist in thinking that Microsoft and its practitioners will move towards an Open operating system? Or that the world will consider this so valuable that it will put effort into it, in parallel to the commercial offering? (Experience with Open Office is not a good omen but that shouldn’t dissuade us). Open Source is gaining ground and there are an increasing number of organizations and purchasers requiring it. Maybe the time will come when it’s impossible to sell closed source operating systems into some organizations. I’d applaud them. And Microsoft will need to change its business model to accommodate this – in which case projects such as ours will have helped to show the way.

The project has seen great change during its four-year run. We started with a semi-closed system and moved toward a completely Open one. It’s created the formal, Open, de facto standard of CML. CML is the only validatable content in chemistry, and probably among very few others in science. Joe deserves great credit for that. Whatever happens to the code, the CML specification and practice is completely Open and will help to create better chemistry in the future.

Please join us if you want to develop in C# and want an exciting and useful project.

Comments welcome and expected – I will treat them thoughtfully.